A message database server receives a message request from an application program and returns a confirmation or error status to the application program after attempting to store the message information contained in the request to a data store. The data store may be maintained by the message database server or by a queuing system. A message server obtains the message information from the data store for transmission through either a pull or push methodology. In one aspect the message data store contains a set of personalization tags and an identifier for a message template that contains the text of the message to be sent. The message server creates the message by retrieving the message template specified by the identifier and filling in variables in the text in the template with the appropriate personalization tags.